Today’s site update brought to you by Charlie the Civil War Westie. This site began as a way for me to make my Civil War travels more efficient. I’d make notes for trips and then lose them or it would take hours to find them. It also allowed me to draft the post and then go on trips complete with GPS coordinates for stops right on my phone so that I’d miss fewer things. The writing helped me understand the campaigns, battles and strategy before I actually saw the terrain or in many cases saw it in a different light from previous visit(s). Although very computer literate I didn’t know a thing about wordpress when I started. I tried blogger at first but when I wrote a post about a visit to North Island in Winyah Bay near Georgetown, South Carolina, I listed the choices available to get there, which were two commercial tour companies. Someone reported me to blogger and my account was suspended for unwanted spam! That led me to not take the further risk of losing my information and use a pay site like wordpress even though I’m not a business or even trying to be a business, it’s just me writing largely for myself. In the process I’ve learned a lot but still have a ways to go.

Charlie’s getting bored so let’s get to the update. I’ve added a plugin to detect broken links in case someone lands on one allowing me to find and repair it. With over 500 posts there are just too many links to monitor without the plugin. The plugin appears to be working well in the short period since I installed it. I added four new links to the secondary widgets (and repaired the broken links there) that appear on each page all of which are worthy of visiting and supporting in alphabetical order they are: the Battery White Historical Association; the Blue and Gray Education Society; Friends of Honey Hill Battlefield and the Wyse Fork Battlefield Commission. I have no commercial relationship with any of the sites in the links or any other commercial entity that might appear in any of my posts. I’m not completely happy with the theme I’m using in wordpress (controls the overall appearance of the page) but I’m not brave enough to change it at this point. So I’m trying to overcome some of its shortcomings by modifying the main menu. I’ve redone the Series selection to convert it to a pulldown and grouping it by state. I’ve redone the Categories pulldown adding some new selections. I’m thinking of eliminating the years (which will still appear in the Categories primary widget on every page), and adding some other categories like lighthouses, graffiti houses and caves, or shipwrecks in their place. The coastal cities series are pretty much done for Florida and South Carolina. The next state after that will probably be North Carolina. My wife loves beaches but Charlie and I are not big fans so coastal vacations became a way to keep everyone happy. Today a Shipwrecks in NC Series was added and in 2 days Day Trips from Asheville, NC will download. After the 1862 Valley Campaign Series finishes the next series will be Foster’s 1862 Goldsborough Bridge Raid. Following that I’m planning on doing the 1864 Overland Campaign from the Wilderness through Cold Harbor. With that series I’ll start a new trend of trying to show more pictures of the terrain. Thinking also about adding a contact form to the menu (need to figure out a widget to use for that). Several of the more recent posts have been opened for comments.